No more MONK-ey business! Taking control with Esper Monastery Mentor in Legacy!
I play a Magic the Gathering Online Legacy league with Esper Monastery Mentor Control! This list was a request from Patreon subscriber Jeremy who wanted to see my take on Esper Control in Legacy. It turns out that sometimes the easy answer is the best one, so I updated Callum "WhiteFaces" Smith's Esper Mentor deck from right after the Oko ban with some sweet new Strixhaven cards and got right to work.
Decklist:
Try this deck yourself with the Cardhoarder loan program:
0:00 Intro
0:35 Deck Tech
4:41 Round 1
20:15 Round 2
40:41 Round 3
1:18:21 Round 4
1:43:32 Round 5
2:16:43 Final Thoughts
Business inquiries: boshnrollstream@gmail.com
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Speaking of Patreon…
Get early access to what I'm working on plus extra decklists, sideboard guides, and access to my discord via Patreon.
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#MTG #MTGLegacy #MTGStrixhaven
I’d say I’m sorry about that first match but I love watching Lands doing what it does so I’d be lying
I enjoyed watching this archetype so much from the other video, I literally bought the deck in paper. This video didn’t disappoint. Thanks for what you do.
Thanks! I love this deck too. I don’t have much of a MTGO collection anymore because I have Cardhoarder, but I do own all these cards haha.
I truly enjoyed the instant-speed Inq to take the bolt.
I hope we see where your Moat deck is at soon!
That strix show Nd tell line was crazy
That play opened my third eye I swear.
using the strix etb to get priority to exile omniscience. that’s the stuff i watch for
In the final game what do you think about inquisitioning yourself taking your strix? That means you will 100% be able to unearth it the following turn.
I’ve been trying out esper mentor and liking the deck more and more and I always wondered (nobody can tell me why lol) why is there only 3 force of will? Is it because you want more exile or something else ?
Exiling and hardcasting are both often relevant with this deck.
This deck is very similar to the Esper Stoneblade midrange. Do you think Mentor is better than the Stoneforge package? And also don’t you think that Hymn is somewaht clunky? Making you lose to your own manabase too often. Maybe playing just 2 thoughtseizes instead would be better?
hey brian, legacie newbie here. @28:18 how come u say “if I get strix here I can’t lose”? couldn’t opponent have show-and-tell’ed emrakul instead of omni?
Yes, technically they could have, but I think his opponent would have had to make such a deep read on the situation to do that. Putting in Omni is 99.99% of the time the right thing to do.
What do you think about sedgemoor witch in a deck like this? Is the list just too tight at this point? You think it’s just not needed?
That’s the Mentor slot. If you think another color is better than White in the shell you can make that port pretty easily. They don’t share deck space though.
man u are a great magic player
Maybe 20 lands is too few?
If you would put in one more of each basic land it would make total of 23, which would probably be enough. It would also help out a bit against back to basics and wasteland (and even against stifle in lesser extent), by being basic lands.
If you are worried about spell density, then maybe use the dfc spell-lands from the last zendikar block instead of extra basics? The black kill spell seem decent at least.
@Tyrisalthan it depends on the situation. Do think of it this way. the reason you need higher land counts in other formats is you want consistency. The Cantrips give you that consistency without worrying about flooding. If your playing a game where you need 6+ lands you would want more in the main even if you have the ability to filter. But here you want around 4. So in theory decks that need less to function run even less. ( Rug delver runs between 15-18) Then the next question is, why not run more Cantrips instead of the lands. The answer is deminishing returns.
@Blake Jones Wouldn’t it be better to use ponders and brainstorms to dig for spells instead of lands?
20 lands is plenty with brainstorm and ponder. Often you’ll see decks like this running 18. Cantrips really go along way smoothing out your draws.
He finally got rid of the miracles stop
@6:30 Legacy players still casting FoW over FoN for no reason? Take 1 damage and leave the card in the yard for Hall of Heliods Generosity to potentially pick up, why? =S
I guess you could say it’s… wait for it…
force of habit ???
@Victor Pluntky Oh yeah, probably should have pitched them in the other order. Good call.
You’re not the only one doing this though. I see most people who’ve played legacy for a long time always reach for the FoW first, without considering the reverse =)
@BoshNRoll Your argument would make sense if you didn’t cast FoW exiling FoN from your hand. All I was trying to say is that the reverse made more sense if you are gonna get rid of those two cards anyway.
Their deck does not have Hall of Heliod in it. It does have Life from the Loam and Punishing Fire. I’m saving my precious main deck exile effects for cards that need to be exiled. Valakut Exploration are Crop Rotation are the only great targets for Force of Will in the matchup, I’m going to lock in my value when I get the chance.
Could they have put emrakul in in stead of omniscience?
That line opens them up to Teferi, Council’s Judgement, Supreme Verdict, edicts, Karkas, Terminus, etc. I don’t play them all, but you have to respect them. Omni is literally in the deck to avoid those outs. The only way the Omni line gets punished is if I have a way to “steal” priority AND an instant speed answer to Omni. With perfect information they’re probably better off putting Emrakul straight in there, but there’s no reasonable way to deduce that without seeing my hand.
What do you think Void Mirror will do to the meta?
Close to nothing. I don’t think that card is very good. I think it will follow the Opposition Agent trajectory of seeing lots of play at first then people slowly realize it doesn’t do what they want and cut it.
So big brain w tefri discard off whale
You should have been playing more basic lands and fetch lands. Indeed, you were playing too many non basics that are completely unnecessary in this particular deck.